THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504070150
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HOLLY WESTER, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
THERE WAS A GOOD reason for strangling vines, exotic plants and wild animals to take over a Red Mill Elementary School classroom.
Cheryl Allen, a fifth-grade teacher, wanted her students to learn about tropical rain forests, so as part of a mini-lesson, she let them turn her classroom into a jungle.
``I wanted to get that 3-D effect in and hit all five senses,'' she said.
Allen built her idea from student interest. She recalled that students had been curious about rain forests, after seeing them mentioned in a couple of textbooks.
``They didn't know much about them and neither did I,'' she said.
Her brainstorm came to life two weeks ago, when the students began researching rain forests. The few books they found provided enough facts for them to get the idea.
The children couldn't believe that one acre of jungle could host 200 different species of trees, and that each tree could contain more than 50 species of ants and 10,000 other species of spiders and mites. They were shocked to find out that rain forests serve as giant sponges, collecting pollutants and producing the greatest amount of oxygen.
Allen was even surprised by the fast facts. ``It blew my mind,'' she said. ``I was freaking out.''
Within four days, the 55 students in Allen's two classes turned colored bulletin board paper into three-dimensional creatures and greenery. Working in pairs, the children made iguanas, spider monkeys and boa constrictors, as well as silt palm trees, vines and tropical vegetation, making the classroom thick and lush.
``Everything was scale model,'' Allen said of the student creations. ``They just did the most wonderful things. It turned out much better than I ever expected.''
After the forest was finished, Allen wanted to take the students to another level. So, she had them spread blankets on the floor, and while they sat beneath the trees, she adjusted the lighting to help them experience the jungle at different times of the day.
``It was good because we got to see what a rain forest looked like,'' fifth-grader Ryan Zimmerman said.
To simulate night, Allen cut off all the lights and armed students with flashlights, which they used to spotlight and identify animals they saw.
Opened blinds and overhead light meant daytime, and that's when Allen read the students ``The Great Kapok Tree,'' Lynne Cherry's tale of the Amazon rain forest.
``It was really neat,'' said Monica Nicoles, a fifth-grader. ``But it's sad because all the animals are going to be endangered. What did they do to deserve this?''
After their day in the jungle, the students began writing rain forest adventure stories, an assignment they were told to think about at the beginning of the lesson. They already had characters and a setting picked for their stories, but many had to reorganize because of their rain forest experience.
``Their stories took on a whole new appearance,'' Allen said.
Allen also incorporated rain-forest vocabulary, such as tropical, canopy, humidity and exotic, into spelling lessons.
To wrap up the lesson, she gave the students a list of more than 25 rain-forest action groups across the world, and asked them to write business letters to them. Students wrote to organizations in France, Brazil, Malaysia and other places to voice their concerns.
``They are worried about the rain forests now,'' Allen said. ``They want to know what they can do in the future to stop the destruction.''
Fifth-grader Leah Wickham wrote to Australia. ``The rain forests are in danger,'' she said. ``Farmers are cutting them down for land. It's not a good thing because they have lots of trees to give us oxygen.''
Since many students in the school stopped by to visit the rain forest, other Red Mill teachers have expressed interest in doing something similar next year. Allen mentioned that the teachers and students might collectively put together a jungle in one of the hallways.
``We learned a lot and had fun with it,'' Allen said. ``That's what school's all about, right?'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos courtesy of RED MILL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Susan Hughes' first-graders visit the ``rain forest'' setting in
Cheryl Allen's fifth-grade classroom at Red Mill Elementary. ``I
wanted to get that 3-D effect in and hit all five senses,'' said
Allen. ``(The students) just did the most wonderful things. It
turned out much better than I ever expected.''
Fifth-graders Meghan Ferguson, left, and Liz Mick show off the
waterfall they created for the rain forest.
Fifth-grade teacher Cheryl Allen also incorporated her lesson on the
rain forest into reading, spelling and writing assignments.
by CNB